Clothes-drier



. C. W. HAGERMAN.

'CLOTHES DRIER. APPLICATION FILED MAY 2, 1918.

1,400,359, Patented B60513, 1921.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES W. HAGEEMAN, OF CI-IAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS.

CLOTHES-DRIER.

Application filed May 2,

To all whom it may concern.

Be it known that I, CHARLES W Haema- MAN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Champaign, in the county of Champaign and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Clothes- Driers, of which the following is a specification.

The invention relates to improvements in that class of clothes driers in which a central standard is supported in a vertical position by extended legs, the said standard supporting outwardly extending arms upon which are placed the clothes for drying.

The primary object of my invention is to provide an improved construction by which the outwardly extended arms upon which the clothes are to be placed for drying may be easily manipulated so as to be compactly folded together when the drier is not in use.

It is a further object of my invention to provide an improved expansible or outwardly extending series of supports for shirts particularly adapted for use in laundries where different operatives each perform an ironing or finishing operation upon a shirt or other garment. The garment is then placed in position on the drierframe which is operated to bring the garment into position to be taken up by the succeeding operator, the device in the meantime holding the shirts or other garments in such a manner that finished parts of garments will not come in contact with dampened or unfinished parts of other garments which would injure the finish.

It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved construction of an extensible arm by which the same may be rendered detachable from the ordinary arm retaining device so that a number less than the whole number of arms may be expanded or extended for holding a limited number of clothes and garments as when it is desired to utilize only a small part of the rack or drier. In using these detachable arms they may be arranged on the drier in such a manner as to extend radially from the holder on the supporting post or standard and so adapt the device for use in a corner of a room or other space where only a limited amount of space is available.

It is a further object of the invention to provide an improved form of metallic bracket adapted to support radially extending expansible clothes drier arms.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Dec. 13, 1921. sle. Serial No. 232,035.

Other objects of the invention will appear from the following specification which is dirooted to the preferred embodiment of the invention as illustrated in the drawing forming a part of the specification and pointed out more particularly in the appended claims.

In the said drawing Figure 1 is an elevation of a clothes drier embodying my invention with the brackets for supporting the extended arms in section.

Fig. 2 is a broken top plan view of the device of Fig. 1.

Fig. 3 is a perspective view showing the modified form of outwardly extending supports provided with a novel form of cross head for supporting shirts.

Fig. 4 is a broken detail view showing the construction of the inner ends of the arms which are foldable and which are used to support clothes or-to support shirt holders as shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 5 is a broken detail view showing a modified construction of one of the clothes holding arms. The central standard being indicated by the reference character 10 is preferably cylindrical in form and may be conveniently although not necessarily con structed of wood. It is supported by a suitable base having outwardly extending legs 11 of which there may be three or more pivotally connected at 12 to a suitable bracket 13 secured to the central standard 10 some distance above the lower extremity thereof. A second bracket 14 is slidably mounted on the lower extremity of the standard 10 and connected by links 15 with each of the legs or supports 11 so that the legs 11 may be collapsed or folded closely around the standard 10 by moving the collar 14 vertically in either direction along the standard. When the legs are in an expanded condition the collar 14 will occupy a middle position by of sheet metal the body portion of which is indicated by the reference character 2O being formed by the action of dies upon a circular metal sheet and having a downturned tubular central flange 20" and a downturned peripheral circumferential flange 20 In Fig. 1 I show the central standard 10 provided with two of these metal heads or holders 20 one of them being secured near the upper extremity of the standard 10 and the other spaced below the same and secured to the standard a suliicient distance below the upper head so as to separate the clothes bars held by the respective heads a sufiicient distance apart so that the clothes hung upon the bars of the upper head will not interfere with the bars of the lower head. An import-ant feature of my improved head 20 resides in the metallic reinforcement of the central ferrule 20" by means of the separate thiinble or ferrule 20 the latter being in the form of a metal tube provided at one end with a circumferential enlargement or rib as indicated at 20 engaging the plate body 20 The inner tubular member 20 is preferably formed just a trifle larger at its outside diameter than the internal diameter of the jfianged central portion 20 of the plate and is then forced into the inner opening 20 'of the plate 20, andthe tubularportion- 20 is of sufiicient length, preferably to extend below the plate and the central flange 20" thereof far enough to give the plate 20 the desired support upon the standard 10 to cause it to have a firm connection with the standard regardless of the length of the clothes bars. This construction renders the two parts practically integral and makes it possible to construct the tubular part 20 as long as may be desirable. It is important 'that'the central supporting flange on this plate have considerable length inorder to properly support, the. plate on the central standard 10 and at the same time enable it to be loosely mounted thereon in order that the plates andthe bars carried thereby may be revoluble on the standard 10. I prefer to position the supporting plates 20 on the standard by means of cross pins 21 passing through the standard 10 and projecting from the circumferential part thereof a sufficient distance to cooperate with the lower extremity of the tubular portions 20 In order to prevent the lower plate from rising vertically above the normal position on the standard 10 the upper'cross pin 22 may be employed and in locating the upper plate upon the standard I provide a metallic 'circularplate 23 secured in position by the wood screw 24 passing into the upper end of the standard 10, thus locating both plates upon the standard and at the same time leaving them free'to revolve to position the clothes supporting bars as may be desired or to enable same to be rotated freely upon the standardwhich is highly desirable,:par-

of hanging upon or supportin ticularly when supporting devices such as shown in Fig. 3 are employed for the purpose of supporting shirts in the process of so that when the clothes bars which I designate generally by the reference character 25 are in an extended position as shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, thebars will extend substantially horizontally andradially from the standard 10. Any suitable number of such slots and radial bars 25 may be employed but on a normal sized device I prefer to provide each of the bars with about twelve such slots 20 and a'corresponding number of clothes bars 25. The bars 25 are preferably of wood and are provided with conical or tapered inner extremities 25 and with perforat ons 25 through which is passed a circular retaining wire or other flexible member 26, the ends of which are preferably bound together by a metallic retainer or ferrule as indicated at 27, the ends of the wire being at a sharp angle at their extremities on the outside of the ferrule for the purpose of making a secure fastening of the ends of the wire. Any othersuitable means may be employed for securing the endsof the wire together; The conical shaped inner ends 25 of the bars. 25 are an advantage in assisting the inner extremities of the radial bars so as to afford ease of operation and prevent binding or interlocking during the folding or expanding operation of the bars. i

An important feature of my invention resides in the modified form of clothes bars shown in Fig. 5, the bar properbeing indicated by the referencecharacter 35 and having loop 26. This isa greatconvenience when it is desired to use the drier or rack with a less number of the clothes bars in expanded or horizontal position thanwthe total number held in any one of the heads. For example it is sometimes desirable to' open up only one or two of the bars for the purpose small number of pieces of clothing or" other articles to be dried. In ordinary practice I provide each one of the heads with about eightof the wood bars 25 of the ordinary form asshown in Figs. 1 and 4: and with about four or five of the special bars 35 of the form shown in Fig. 5. At the inner eX- tremities ofthe bars 35 on opposite sides of the bars are secured metal spring members 36 having cooperating ends beveled or given an angular surface at their outer extremities with an opening between them and the extremity of the wood bar 35 of suflicient size 'ing its inner extremity constructed so as to made it detachable from the flexible'retain thereon a to accommodate the flexible retaining wire 26 between them. This construction enables one of the bars to be inserted into the receiving slot-s 20 of the plates 20 and cause same to engage over the flexible retaining loop 26 for normal operation with the other wood bars of the character of the bars 25. Whenever the rack is in a folded condition with all of the bars in the form of those shown in dotted lines connected with the upper plates 20 of Fig. 1 the operator may disengage any one of the special bars 35 from the flexible loop 26 and cause such bar to be extended to the horizontal position independently of any of the other bars of the group. Obviously any one or more of such special bars may be thus operated either for accommodating a limited number of pieces of clothing or for operating a limited number of the bars to the horizontal position when the standard is positioned near a wall or in a corner where it would be impossible to operate all of the bars of the head without interference.

In the modified form of the invention of Fig. 3 I show bars of the form of the bars 25 of Fig. 1 provided at their outer extremities with the special devices to enable the same to be used in supporting shirts or other garments such as shirt waists and the like where it is desirable that a series of opera-- tions in laundering or finishing same shall be performed on such articles.

In Fig. 3 the standard 10 is shown provided at its upper extremities with a plate 20 constructed like the corresponding plate of Fig. 1 and the bars are constructed of two lengths as indicated by the reference characters 45 and 46, the former being of greater length than the latter. I prefer to have the bars 45 about one third greater in length than the bars 46 and arranged so that there will be alternate long and short bars peripherally around the device. On the outer extremities of the bars 45, 46 I secure wood cross heads 47 of a special construction having beveled or angularly extending ends as indicated at 47 The cross heads 47 are designed to support garments such as shirts and shirt waists in the process of being finished or laundered and the offset relation of the different cross heads as arranged pe ripherally of the device is of the greatest advantage in supporting the garments out of possible contact with each other. The specially constructed beveled undersides of the cross heads 47 are also of advantage in enabling the articles such as the neck portions of shirts and shirt waists to be firmly held thereon and to be easily removed by raising the garment or giving it an upward movement in removing it from the cross head or support and preventing any injury to the garment by careless operators by rapidly or carelessly removing the garment therefrom.

The specially constructed bars 45 and 46 provided with the cross heads 47 for shirt waists, etc., being constructed at their inner extremities like the bars 25 of Fig. 1 may obviously be folded to a collapsed position like the bars 25 of Fig. 1 if it is desired to fold the device for storage, transportation and the like.

In order that the invention might be understood the details of the preferred embodiment have been set forth in detail but I desire to avail myself of a broad range of equivalents, for it will be seen that persons skilled in the art may resort to various modifications without departing from the purpose and spirit of the invention.

I claim:

1. In a clothes drier the combination with a vertical standard of a clothes bar head mounted on said standard, the said head comprising a metallic disk provided with an integral peripheral depending flange and an integral central depending flange, a separate metallic thimble or ferrule secured to the said head on the interior of the said integral central depending flange and being of greater length than said flange and extending below the same, there being a plurality of radial slots in the body portion of the said head and extending thence outwardly and downwardly into the said peripheral depending flange thereon, and clothes bars loosely supported in the said radial slots of the head and bearing against said central depending flange.

2. In a clothes drier the combination with a vertical supporting standard of a clothes bar head rotatably mounted on said standard, said head comprising a metallic disk provided with an integral depending peripheral flange and an integral central depending flange, there being a plurality of radial slots in the body portion of the said head, said slots extending thence outwardly and then downwardly into the said peripheral extending flange thereon, a metallic tubular member or ferrule of greater length than the said integral central depending flange and being shrunk into fixed contact therewith, a plurality of clothes bars mounted in the radial slots of the head, and a flexible connection hingedly connecting each of the said bars.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification on this 22nd day of April A. D. 1918.

CHARLES W. HAGERMAN. 

